The transition from the library's suffocating tension to the morning's routine felt like stepping from a fever dream into cold water. Clara had spent the entire night staring at her ceiling, reciting the names of the male leads like a protective mantra, only to be jolted awake by a persistent knocking at dawn.
Usually, their lessons were reserved for the late afternoon, when the sun was low and the room was a fortress of shadows.
But today, a royal page had arrived before Clara could even finish pinning her hair, informed her that the Princess was "craving tea" and escorted her directly to the solar.
Clara stood at the entrance of the sun-drenched room, clutching her heavy satchel to her chest. She watched as a tray of delicate porcelain and a steaming silver kettle were laid out on the marble table.
"Am I a tutor or a glorified tea-maid?" Clara grumbled internally, her eyes twitching. "First she wants to debate the ethics of power, and now I'm being summoned at the crack of dawn to play house?"
She adjusted her spectacles, trying to summon her "boring professional" persona, but her stomach did a nervous somersault.
Veronica was already there, draped in a gown of lavender silk that looked far too expensive for a simple breakfast.
The morning air was deceptively still, but as Clara approached the table, she realized the atmosphere was a live wire.
Clara focused on the silver kettle. Pour. Level. Stop. It was a simple sequence, one she had performed a hundred times, yet the metal felt impossibly heavy. As she tilted the spout over the delicate glass teacup, the fine crystalline rim began to chatter against the saucer.
Clink. Clink-clink.
"You're trembling," Veronica observed.
It wasn't a question.
The Princess was leaning forward, her chin resting on a pale hand, her violet eyes tracking the frantic vibration of the kettle.
A seemingly bored expression on her face.
Before Clara could stammer out an excuse about the morning chill, Veronica's hand shot out.
She didn't take the kettle. Instead, her fingers slid over Clara's- a firm, steadying weight.
It was brief, a careful, measured gesture- Veronica's fingers brushing against Clara's trembling hand as she steadied the teacup-but the warmth of her touch lingered longer than it should have, seeping into Clara's chest and stirring a heat that mirrored the fluttering, uneasy rhythm of her own pulse.
Clara's breath hitched, her gaze locked on their joined hands.
"See?" Veronica murmured, her voice a low hum of satisfaction. "Steady now."
Panicked by the sheer rightness of the touch, Clara flinched.
Her grip failed. The kettle slammed onto its base, and the delicate glass teacup-unbalanced by the sudden movement-toppled. It hit the marble tabletop with a sharp, crystalline crack, shattering into a spray of glittering shards and steaming amber liquid.
"Your Highness! I-I am so sorry, I-"
Rattled and desperate to erase the evidence of her clumsiness, Clara lunged forward. She didn't think; she simply reacted, her bare fingers reaching into the mess of wet glass to sweep the shards away.
"Clara, stop-"
A sharp, stinging heat sliced across Clara's index finger. She gasped, pulling back, but it was too late. A thin, vivid line of crimson bloomed against her pale skin, the blood welling up and beginning to drip onto the white lace of the tablecloth.
The room went deathly quiet.
Clara stared at the wound, her brain reeling.
Stupid.
You're so stupid. Now you've bled in front of the princess-
She didn't get to finish the thought.
Veronica moved with a speed that bypassed all royal decorum. She didn't call for a maid; she didn't reach for a napkin. She seized Clara's wrist, her grip like iron, and pulled the injured hand toward her face.
Clara's heart hammered against her ribs like a trapped bird. "Your Highness, please, it's just a scratch-"
Veronica didn't listen. Her eyes were dark, focused entirely on the red bead of blood. Slowly, deliberately, she leaned down and took Clara's finger into her mouth.
The world stopped.
The sensation was overwhelming- the wet warmth, the slight pressure, the rhythmic pull as Veronica drew the copper-tasting sting away. Clara felt the heat from earlier turn into a scorching fire that climbed up her neck and stained her cheeks a deep, frantic rose.
Veronica's eyes never left Clara's. Even as she pulled away, her lips remained parted, a small smear of red staining the corner of her mouth like a fallen rose petal. She didn't let go of Clara's wrist.
"It's a waste," Veronica whispered, her voice husky and dark. "To spill something so precious on a tablecloth."
Veronica didn't release Clara's wrist immediately. Instead, she leaned back just an inch, her gaze tracing the frantic flush that had climbed all the way to Clara's ears. A slow, dangerous smirk tugged at the corner of the Princess's mouth- the look of a cat that hadn't just caught the mouse, but had realized the mouse was unexpectedly gourmet.
"My, Clara," Veronica purred, her voice dripping with a haughty, mock-concern. "You're trembling even more now. Is the sight of your own blood so distressing?"
Or is it the company? Veronica thought in her head.
"It... it is a matter of hygiene, Your Highness!" Clara stammered, finally tugging her hand back. She tucked it behind her back, her finger still tingling from the... treatment. "And decorum! A Princess do not... they do not perform first aid via... suction!"
Veronica laughed, a rich, melodic sound that felt far too intimate for a Tuesday morning. "I am a Princess, I can afford a few 'unorthodox' methods." Her expression suddenly shifted, her eyes widening with a dramatic, exaggerated alarm.
"But you're right. The wound. It could fester. It could turn gangrenous by noon. I shall summon the Head Royal Physician and the High Priest for a purification rite immediately."
Clara's eyes nearly popped out of her head. "The Head Physician? For a paper cut?! Your Highness, he is currently treating the Archduke's gout! You cannot pull him away because I'm a klutz!"
"Nonsense," Veronica said, reaching for the bell pull with a playful glint in her eyes. "Only the best for my dear tutor."
"No! Stop! Don't you dare!" Clara lunged-forgetting all protocols- and grabbed Veronica's silk sleeve to stop her. "It's a scratch! Look, I'll find someone else. Anyone else!"
Clara scanned the solar frantically. Through the open terrace doors, she spotted a flash of straw-colored hair and a green tunic near the rosebushes.
"Him!" Clara pointed desperately. "The gardener! He'll have... I don't know, dirt-medicine? A bandage? Just don't call the palace hospital!"
Veronica arched a perfectly groomed brow, looking immensely amused by Clara's mounting hysteria. "The gardener? You'd prefer a man who deals in manure over a licensed doctor?"
"Yes! Ten times yes!"
Clara didn't wait for an answer. She scrambled toward the terrace, her voice cracking as she called out, "Excuse me! Sir! You there with the shears!"
****
By the time Clara reached the terrace, Keith was already kneeling beside a low workbench, a small first-aid kit open at his side.
"Bit of a panic attack?" he asked lightly, tilting his head with that easy familiarity that somehow always made Clara feel… both reassured and self-conscious.
Clara waved a hand dismissively, cheeks still warm. "No! Of course not. I'm… I'm perfectly composed. I just-" She stopped herself, swallowing hard. "-wanted to make sure the wound was treated properly."
Keith's smile was patient, understanding, as he gestured toward the seat beside him.
"Then let's get it cleaned up."
Clara hesitated, hovering over the workbench like she might bolt at any moment. But the relief in having someone competent nearby, someone familiar, won over her rigid protocols. She settled into the chair, and Keith's hands moved with practiced ease, gently cleaning the scratches she had barely survived under Veronica's watchful amusement.
"You're very reactive today, Clara," he murmured. "Is it the tea, or the person you're pouring it for?"
Clara stiffened, her eyes darting toward the kitchen door as if expecting Veronica to materialize through the wood. "I'm just tired. The Princess has... a very demanding curriculum."
"Hey," Keith said softly, pausing for a second as his hands lingered near hers.
"You… like the princess, right?"
Clara blinked, caught off-guard. "…Of course," she said automatically, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear, her pulse spiking at the simple question.
Keith's gaze didn't waver, calm and steady. "…I mean, like… romantically?"
The words made her chest tighten. She could feel her denial rising like a shield. No. No. Not like that. Admiration. Duty. Nothing else.
"…I- what?" she murmured, words stumbling over themselves.
Keith shrugged, leaning back slightly, that familiar, comforting ease in his posture.
"You know. Do you… like her the way people usually mean it?"
Clara's fingers itched against the bandage, her mind racing. She shook her head quickly. "…No. Of course not. It's… it's… just-"
The air in Clara's lungs vanished. She felt the weight of her secret knowledge- the plot, the script, the "ideal" romance she was supposed to be forcing-all crashing down. "That's... that's preposterous. She's a Princess. I'm a tutor. It's logically impossible-"
"You're talking about logic again," Keith sighed, tying a neat knot around her finger.
"Logic doesn't usually have much to say when the heart starts acting up."
Clara opened her mouth to deliver a scathing rebuttal about social hierarchies, but Keith leaned in a fraction closer.
"I asked because... I understand the look in your eyes. I like the same gender too."
Clara's jaw actually dropped. In all her reading of A Golden Crown for my Beloved, this had never been mentioned.
"You... you do?" she whispered.
Keith nodded, a small, weary smile playing on his lips. "When I first realized, I was terrified. I thought I was broken. I thought I had narrowed my life down to a tiny, lonely path." He looked at the steam rising from a nearby soup pot, his expression softening.
"But then I realized... it's not a narrowing. It's just more options. More ways to feel. Why should we limit the soul to a single blueprint when the world offers infinite ways to be?"
He gave her hand a final, supportive squeeze.
"I've decided to just let it happen," Keith continued, his voice steady. "To fall freely. If it consumes me, then at least I felt something real before the end. Don't think too much about the 'why' or the 'how,' Clara. Just ask yourself if you're happy when she's close."
Clara looked at her bandaged finger. The "script" in her head felt like it was being soaked in rain, the ink running until the words were illegible. She thought of Veronica- the way she looked in the morning light, the terrifying warmth of her touch, and the way she had looked at Clara's blood as if it were a vintage wine.
"I'm not happy," Clara lied, her voice trembling. "I'm terrified."
"Usually," Keith said, picking up his empty crate and standing back up, "they're the same thing."
He stood up and disappeared back toward the gardens, leaving Clara alone in the heat of the kitchen, finally forced to face the fact that she was falling for the very woman meant to be her ruin.
But Clara wasn't certain- she hadn't ever fallen for anyone at all in the life she once knew, not really.
**
It was time for their afternoon lessons and Clara felt the weight of each step, stiff and awkward, as though the room itself could see how uncomfortably out of place she had become.
"As I was saying, Your Highness... the marriage of Empress Susan the Bold was... an outlier. Most unions are dictated by... by land, and by... by ore deposits."
Across the table, Veronica wasn't mocking her. She wasn't even leaning forward with her usual predatory grace. Instead, the Princess was uncharacteristically still.
For the first time in her life, Veronica Aethelgard was caught in the grip of a question she couldn't answer with a command.
Why?
She looked at Clara's wrapped finger. She could still taste the faint, metallic tang of copper on her tongue. It was a visceral, grounding sensation that refused to fade.
Clara's voice was there, moving and vibrating, but the Princess had stopped translating the words into meaning.
Instead, she was trapped in the sensory memory of the last ten minutes.
Why did I do it? The question echoed against the gilded walls of her consciousness.
She had only thought of the sharp, stinging need to claim that pain, to soothe it, to taste the life force of the only person in this palace who looked at her with genuine, terrified honesty.
I am the princess, Veronica thought, her gaze fixed on a distant cloud. Everything orbits me. So why does it feel like I am the one being pulled out of my own gravity?
The heavy oak doors of the solar creaked open, breaking the spell.
"Your Highness," a steady voice announced.
Veronica straightened instantly, her spine snapping back into a rigid, royal line. She didn't turn around, but her reflection in the mirror smoothed into a mask of cold indifference. "Speak, Thomas."
"Lady Charlotte has requested an audience," Thomas stated, his tone neutral. "She has arrived at the palace gates, accompanied by the Duke of Solari."
At the mention of the name- Nikolai- Clara went still. The silence in the room became brittle.
"The Duke?" Veronica repeated, her voice a low, dangerous velvet.
"Indeed, Your Highness," Thomas continued. "It appears the Lady Charlotte was concerned for your wellbeing, having heard rumors of your recent... indisposition. She felt it only right to bring the Duke along to offer their collective well-wishes for your recovery."
"I... I should excuse myself, Your Highness," Clara stammered.
She was halfway to the exit when Veronica's voice, cool and dry, halted her mid-step.
"Sit back down, Clara."
"Your Highness, I really should—"
"You are the daughter of Baron Valeria,"
Veronica reminded her, not with a shout, but with the weary patience of someone stating a mathematical fact.
"Regardless of your 'contract,' you are still noble. It would be nice if you join us. To vanish the moment a Duke arrives makes it look as though my inner circle is populated by frightened rabbits."
"I am a very comfortable rabbit, Your Highness," Clara pleaded, her voice squeaking. "A rabbit who would much rather be in a burrow than in a drawing room with the Cold Duke of the North."
Veronica finally looked at her, a faint, teasing glint returning to her violet eyes. "You're staying. Think of it as an 'observation' lesson."
"But-"
"No 'buts,' Tutor. That's a royal command."
Clara slumped back into her chair, her heart performing a frantic tap-dance against her ribs. She was trapped.
Her feelings, tangled and unresolved, made her uneasy at the thought of witnessing Veronica and Nikolai together- the infamous pair from the novel, with Veronica's obsessive infatuation so vividly written. She couldn't name what stirred within her- an ache, a hesitation, a storm of emotions-but she knew she wasn't ready to watch, not when her own heart throbbed with something she couldn't yet define.